The American Way of Strategy (Ch: 7-9 Summaries)

The American Way of Strategy (Ch: 7-9 Summaries)

The American Way of Strategy (Ch: 7-9 summaries)

The Cold War began in the late 1940s when Joseph Stalin refused to move the Red Army from Eastern Europe, imposed communist regimes on the region, began a massive arms buildup, and sponsored communist revolutions throughout the world. The Cold War began in Europe and ended in Europe. This war, as any other war, was a calculated plan and not just a tragic accident as evidence showed in the memorandum soviet deputy foreign minister Ivan Maisky sent to Josef Stalin. “Maisky suggested that the Soviet government manipulate popular fronts to bring communist satellite regimes to power throughout continental Europe after the war.” So the Cold War resulted from Soviet aspirations to dominate Europe and Asia. However this time, the Soviets preferred methods such as intimidation and subversion to fight this war.
As it is discussed in previous chapters of this book, “The purpose of the American way of strategy has always been to defend the American way of life,” which led the United States to prevent the Soviet Union from taking control over Eurasia by conquest, subversion, or military intimidation. However, this time the options to stop Soviets from taking control over the region were limited by the determination of American leaders to avoid militarizing American society. There were options such as the ‘strongpoint defense’ “This was a modified form of isolationism, which would commit the United States to defending only North America and islands off the shore of Eurasia including Britain and Japan.” There was also the strategy of the ‘rollback’ of Soviet power by force. Still, the strategy that was chose was containment. “The United Sates would seek to prevent the Soviet bloc from expanding, by force or sponsorship of communist revolutionary movements. But the United States would not attack the Soviet regime or directly intervene in the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe. Instead, the United States would wait for military...